Press Release

February 21, 2014

Salt Lake City — The John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah has announced that Voyant Biotherapeutics, LLC, a company formed out of its Center for Translational Medicine (CTM), has signed an exclusive R&D collaboration agreement with Allergan, Inc., a multispecialty health care company headquartered in Irvine, Calif. The agreement provides for a combination of upfront, research and milestone payments. Under the agreement, the two companies will work together to identify disease-associated pathways and targets for the development of new therapeutic agents to treat ocular disease. A primary effort of this collaboration will be centered on new treatments for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of irreversible vision loss worldwide.

“This relationship is special in that it is a true collaboration between CTM, Voyant and Allergan scientists,” said Gregory Hageman, executive director of Moran’s CTM.

"We are extremely excited about the significance of this collaboration,” said Randall Olson, CEO of the Moran Eye Center. “This collaboration could not have happened without the generous contributions of hundreds of people supporting the CTM in its quest to find new treatments for the prevention and treatment of AMD and other ocular diseases.”